UV-grafting coloration of cotton and wool fabrics using bismethacrylated quinizarin dye

A novel bifunctional quinizarin dye possessing two photoactive methacrylate groups was synthesized by the reaction of quinizarin with methacryloyl chloride. The synthesized dye, a low substantive dye under the conventional dyeing process, can be photografted onto cotton and wool fabrics at room temperature without neutral salts, which makes it a novel coloration process of excellent environmental friendliness. The concurrent polymerization and grafting of the synthesized dye onto cotton or wool can be assisted by a photoinitiator and acrylic acid in the case of cotton grafting. Moreover, color yields of the grafted fabrics improved significantly with the photografting of the bifunctional dye. The bifunctional dye can be photopolymerized with the increase in UV energy to 25 J/cm² and the oligomeric dye has a degree of polymerization of 5 or more. Furthermore, the color fastness properties of the grafted fabrics were superior to those of the dyed fabrics via exhaustion.